BEAUTY contests, boxing, basketball. These are events, perhaps in that order, that makes us stick together, skip schedules, share drinks, shoot commentaries, and shout in euphoria when our country takes the victory.
Just like last Monday, everyone is jubilant when our Miss Philippines Catriona Gray “lava-walked” and “slow-moed” her way to the top 10, then top five, to top three, then finally took the crown of Miss Universe.
Now a question to us viewers, ala-beauty contestant questioning: What makes us love beauty contest in an age of feminism, LGBTQ, equality, and misogyny?
We might call it escapism, entertainment, but there’s also this thing called romanticizing that we can outshine life’s difficulties through sports or beauty.
That was how we loved Pacquiao in the last decade, how we loved his story of stowing away from poverty in General Santos into the rings of Nevada to capture eight world titles. That was before his distraction into singing, senate and social gaffes took away his luster.
That’s how we love beauty queens. It’s not the tisay looks, it’s the heart that matters. Catriona for instance, won the audience and perhaps the judges with her answer to the final question. Asked what life’s most important lesson is, she said her charity work in building a school in Tondo taught her to see beauty in poverty, to help build a place where negativity will not grow.
It is a romanticized view of poverty, reflecting an outsider looking into one of the country’s poorest place. But the thing she has going for her is taking action, and advocacy. And in action, there’s analysis. During the pageant interviews, she points out that what kills children’s dream is not poverty. “It is lack of child support, not poverty that killed their dreams.”
Whether this remark was crafted by her handlers, it shows Catriona knows what she’s speaking of. Her words throw light to the state of children in our country.
At this time when most people blame poverty on the poor themselves, Catriona points out the fault is not in the stars but in the system. Where 70% of our people feel they are poor, it is a question why the GDP has not translated into providing social services like schools and health centers, or provided stable jobs and more farms? It is also a question why martial law in Mindanao is putting Lumad and Moro children away from schools instead of protecting them, and leaving them traumatized from bombs and bullets. Where is the change that was promised by every dispensation?
It’s interesting how Catriona speaks and subverts our romantic view by sharing the realities of our children, battered and deprived. What she does next as beauty queen is our next question. Her words though are opening doors from foundations and groups to her and to others, to help build those dreams and find the silver linings through action and connectedness. And that’s the power of real beauty.